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MEA House

MEA House, built in the classic Tyneside Modernism style, was developed in the 1960s and 1970s as part of T Dan Smith’s daring vision to recreate Newcastle city centre as the ‘Brasilia of the North’.

Built by architects Ryder & Yates’, and their first building of scale in the centre of Newcastle, it was named using the initials of its three benefactors, Mungo Campbell, Esther McCracken and Alastair Fife.

It opened in the early 1970s to provide high quality office accommodation at competitive rents exclusively for charitable organisations and replaced offices that had been compulsorily purchased to achieve the city’s redevelopment vision.

This vision was never fully achieved. But evidence of the plans for a multi-level city where buildings on huge pillars allow traffic to flow beneath and buildings ‘fire off pedestrian walkways, flyovers and overpasses from over and under…’ can still be seen throughout the city centre, including nearby Swan House.